Singing For the Mute
Chantie Rony
Painting and Drawing
Master in Fine Arts Thesis
May 2016
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Table of Contents
Thesis body……………………………………………………………3
Bibliography and Works Cited………………………………………12
Images……………………………………………………………….13
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Daily life is a complex mixture of ever changing scenes that forms the existence of a
human life. Every little detail plays a crucial role in formation of the complete image. As a
painter, for me, it is important to pay extra attention to the local landscape, to analyze and
process visual information through my art with my mind and soul. The landscape of everyday
life has become a subject of my research. Finding the ways of transforming the ordinary into the
extraordinary and manifesting the silent beauty in the natural world is an essential and
challenging part of my research. The research is divided into two aspects: one is the formal
interest and process related, including the use of technique, material and the tools, while the
other are the concepts that develop through the form, go beyond the surface and return back to
direct and influence the appearance of my work. The analysis of my research involves several
factors - communicative, historical, cultural, and personal.
At first, in order to clarify the subject of my research and the interest, I have to trace the
fundamental and a complex question of who am I as a person and as an artist. Examining this
question helps me to orient the direction of my research. Professor Amy Cheng reinforced this
concept to me, telling me: “you must give in to who you are, find out what your strengths are,
and do what you understand. You, as a painter, must acknowledge what comes naturally to you,
what appeals to you, in order to settle into yourself, accept who you are and where you are, and
accept what you do. You cannot escape yourself.” This advice helps me begin to the inner
searching, finding my identity, and expressing my own voice. Regarding formal aspects, I enjoy
applying atmospheric light, dynamic marks and liberating material in order to create pictorial
landscapes and painterly abstraction to “bridge the realistic and the abstract divide” (Editors of
Phaidon, 26) within my work.
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This intention is nurtured imperceptibly with pre-cultural aesthetics. It is possible to trace
the parallel to Chinese expressive ink painting that comes as a result of my cultural background
growing up in China. Chinese ink Painting, in contrast to European painting before Modernism,
“are much more likely to read primarily as configurations of brushstrokes on the picture
plane”(Cahill, James, 5). While Chinese landscape painting is the subtle edification of my work,
it mostly reflects inner world or cultivation of the painter. At times it intends to reveal the
enlightenment from nature. Landscapes, as a motif, are used more for self-expression of the
maker rather than just depicting the landscape as an object.
Professor Gabe Brown inspired me by reminding me that we are the product of our
culture and the circumstances that help form our personalities, perceptions and aesthetic
intention. Coming from a cross-cultural background, the use of the concept embodied in
landscape is influenced by oriental poetic quality and philosophy of Daoism among other things.
Certain events, circumstances, and personal experiences have played an essential role in the
development of themes in my work. Having at times experienced suffering, abandonment,
struggles, and even a yearning for transformation, I strive to discover and represent a
sentimental, magic land hiding deep in everyday life through the medium of painting. I reveal a
duality – the melancholy and impermanence that lie behind the seeming exuberance and
tranquility of natural world. I give voice to objects, canvases, experiences, and emotions,
shedding inner power upon the landscapes, singing for the mute, the unnoticed silent natural
world.
In order to make the research complete, it is necessary to closely scrutinize and examine
the interest of the subject to form the personal concept by asking the following questions. What
does a landscape mean to me? What are the formal structures that exist in the pastoral and how
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can they inspire an aesthetic reaction? How can different pictorial forms be used to emulate a
lyrical quality of nature? How could I juxtapose different forms including representation and
abstraction in one painting to reveal the dynamism of nature? What are the historical and
contemporary examples that inspire me to explore the spiritual state infused within a landscape?
What specific emotional or spiritual state I am interested in expressing in my painting?
Every method, technique and a way of approaching an art form requires a certain vision,
a philosophy and a concept. It helps to become open-minded, unbiased and reveal the inner
ability of the individual. In my quest for knowledge of inner peace, I researched the philosophy
of Chinese Daoism. This indigenous Chinese religion not only builds the national character of
the Chinese who love mysterious, romantic and unrestrained qualities, it also has a profound
impact on Chinese artistic pursuit. The foreign father of Chinese Daoism, Lao Tzi said: “Great
music has the faintest Notes, great form is beyond shape”(Laozi., Ames and Hall, 131). In my
understanding and epiphany, it calls for respect for the nature and pursuit of the freehand verve
and spiritual likenesses. It also suggests the aesthetic intention of simplicity, implicitness
and
ambiguity. Even though I have been trained strictly in academic realistic painting in the
undergraduate study, I try to challenge my comfort zone to give up detail description, but still
capture the inner reality of an object through suggestive and vague outward likeness. I
experiment in a loose and unrestricted way to heighten a certain atmosphere or feeling. Turning
to philosophy concepts once again, it is important to mention another sage of Daoism, Zhuang
Tzi who advocated, “do nothing”, keeping a free and unfettered spirit to cooperate with the
objective world. He revealed that one could enjoy mental and physical freedom through the
understanding of the rules that dominate the objective world (Moeller). This concept influenced
me to allow my materials do what they want. As a result, I am not restricted to realistic
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descriptive detail. I want to paint nature in the way it is. I prefer to experiment with “the
evocative potential of painting and try to push the possibilities of my medium”. A critic uses this
diction to comment the art of Peter Doig.
According to Daoism, “humans are an integral part of nature” (Ivanhoe and Laozi 46).
That is highest state of Chinese traditional culture. Taoism is intoxicated with nature. The Taoist
thinks that nature approaches the truth and humans can learn from nature. Taoism regards the
human being as a part of nature that must go back to nature; the perfect state of living is a
primitive society that has not been contaminated by civilization (Liu and Laozi 22-23). My
question is: do we ever find a moment of happiness when we get close to nature and remain
carefree as the humanity transcends human subjectivity? To forsake the worldly, indifferent
values and extricate our inner being from secular concepts to expand individuals’ spiritual space,
as with Taoism, through act of painting, I am expanding my own spiritual space. I try to create
the local landscapes in a way that simultaneously personifies nature, and also carries forward that
human spirit to convert to nature’s transcendental state.
I adopted landscapes as a mirror to reflect my individual contemplation about life and to
provoke viewers to rediscover their own muse about life. I try to endow humanity in the
landscape by finding associations between humans’ life and plants’ life to interpret duality. Bitter
and sweet, blooming and in decline… Plants in nature are tenacious and spectacular, yet fragile
and ephemeral. In order to grow, vegetation endures unexpected frustration and struggle. Finally,
their lives quietly bloom with beauty and gratitude. However, everything including beauty, love
and fame will fade with time. The only thing we can appreciate is the present moment.
Usually, the process of my work involves extracting interesting forms from the natural
world to express human emotional and spiritual states through the landscape. At first, as a
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reference, I photograph the landscape that attracts me, through its external forms, I locate its
internal mood that resonates with my inner spirit. Then I choose and find out which medium and
texture is better applied for the particular case. It is based on the formal elements: texture, mark,
patterns that a landscape shows or suggests. Professor Kathy Goodell inspired me by telling me
that landscape integrates well with abstraction. By blending the variety of techniques and
materials, including but not limited to: alcohol ink, gel mediums and watercolor, I create my
personal version of the landscape paintings that hover between representation and abstraction to
praise the silent song, the lyric quality of nature. The entire image is read as a landscape, but
some portions of the image are formed by abstract marks or patterns. Sometimes I use alcohol
ink to start a painting because its unpredictable quality helps me loosen up and also turns the
process of creating into an adventure. When I pour the alcohol ink on Yupo paper, the ink, like a
drunken person, loses control and creates unexpected marks through its physical and chemical
response. On the picture plane, the materials create their own world and would not wait my
decision. This process breaks all the rules that I would have to use with traditional painting tools
and techniques. It forces me to cede control and fight with it each moment. The accidental marks
and forms construct a microscopic world or build texture that gives a view beyond the surface of
the natural world into an imaginary one.
Through pour water, splash ink, and sprinkle salt, encouraging material and medium to
create its own shapes, layers, and texture. The ink, salt and marks stand in as the grass, lake or
the mountains. The image in this area of painting will look as if it has been already dissolved.
This playful and unpredictable process is full of risks, discoveries and miracles. It requires more
experience, courage and quick determination of the painter. The process of ink application
appears to replicate the forces of nature at work in the environment. Sometimes the material
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flowing on the surface of paper is like a hurricane, flood or a volcano explosion sweeping the
ground… In my work, the imagery grows in a way that is alternately under control or is on the
verge of losing control. Therefore, it stays representational or abstract. In this way, the process of
my painting reflects the landscape that is produced with the help of both - the contributions of
human beings and the superlative craftsmanship of nature.
The images below (1 – 4) show the process of my work in the making. The images 5 and
6 indicate the same landscape, as I experimented with different material and approaches to
expand my visual vocabulary.
1
2
8
3
4
5
9
6
Visually, my work tracks my emotions and sensations during the moments when I paint. I
am interested in how tragic beauty, rich symbolism, and the depths of the human psyche are
infused into the landscape scenery. Professor Robin Arnold inspired me by stating that the black
and white drawing evokes a sense of the mysterious. There is truth to this statement as the
contrast of black and white is a striking resemblance of duality of human existence. In my work,
I use black ink to convey the duality that I perceive in nature. I create vigorous and flourishing
plants in black and white to suggest that everything will fade as the time passes through the
temporal and spatial domains. My most recent work focuses on monochromatic ink drawing. The
landscape references are mostly photographed in the dusk. To me, the dusk is the swan song of
nature in a deeply philosophical sense. There are dramatic lights and a sense of grief and regret.
The most breathtaking solemn moment is also the time that approaches dimness and stillness.
Everything will lose its color and die in the darkness, so the setting sun looks as if it is a sea of
blood. The duality is incisively embodied through the dusk.
Once again, the work process brings me back to philosophy. One more reason to work in
the grisaille in water medium is because it is influenced by Daoism. In Daoism, briefness and
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ambiguity are advocated: “Less is more” (Moeller). When I use less descriptive information and
color, I have to use the other methods to enrich my paintings. I vary my brush strokes and
sprinkle different salt to create intriguing marks or build texture instead of realistic details in
pictorial space. From a certain distance, my work is a landscape as a whole. When viewers get
closer to it, I hope that their eyes can take in the rich surface composed of subtle or tangible
texture.
Turning to the references in time and the historic examples I could use to explore the
emotional state infused in a landscape include, I can mention the following artists: expressionist
forefather, Norwegian master Edvard Munch, German Neo-expressionist, Anselm Kiefer. I am
inspired by Anselm Kiefer who presents the Germany’s national trauma and tragedy through the
landscape painting. In addition, I can mention the contemporary linage artists like Karin Mamma
Andersson, Daniel Richter, Peter Doig and Britta Lumer. Researching their arts help me learn
and understand how they make their dreamlike work, how they perfectly incorporate disparate
elements in one image. It is not only the influence, but a key to understanding how the colors,
techniques, approaches and the visions come together in a perfect balance, in a duality of bright
and the dark, heavy and the light, inanimate and alive, the nature and the human being. There is duality in every little detail of life – it is the endless tango of the matters that
influences us daily. My work is a drop of emotion, feelings and personal experiences in the
ocean of life. Through my art, I am trying to give voice to bland familiar object and help it
reflect as honestly and sincerely as it is ever possible – to help the inner searching be heard, to
help the unseen and ordinary be noticed, to sing for the mute.
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Bibliography and Works Cited:
Cahill, James. “Approaches to Chinese Painting.” In Yang Xin et al. Three Thousand
Years of Chinese Painting, 5-12. New Haven: Yale University Press; Beijing:
Foreign Languages Press, 1997.
Editors of Phaidon. Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting. London: Phaidon Press
Inc, 2013.
Ivanhoe, P. J and Laozi. The Daodejing Of Laozi. 46. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co.,
2002. Print.
Laozi., Roger T Ames, and David L Hall. Daodejing. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
Print.
Liu, Zhankui and Laozi. Dao De Jing Quan Jie. A Complete Commentary Book 1
(Oriental Wisdom Series, Volume 1). 22-23, 131. Awakening Light Press, 2013.
Print.
Moeller, Hans-Georg. The Philosophy Of The Daodejing. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2006. Print.
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Images:
The Silent Song 1
The Silent Song 2
The Silent Song 3
The Silent Song 4
60”x42” Ink on paper, 2016
46”x60” Ink on paper, 2016
42”x60” Ink on paper, 2016
30”x24” Ink on paper, 2016
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The Silent Song 5
The Silent Song 6
The Silent Song 7
The Silent Song 8
46”x60” Ink on paper, 2016
30”x24” Ink on paper, 2016
36”x48” Ink on paper, 2016
24”x30” Ink on paper, 2016
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The Silent Song 9
40”x60”
Mix medium on paper, 2015
The Silent Song 10
48”x60”
Oil on canvas, 2015
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